That's not the America that we want to live in. When the Mississippi State Highway Patrol set up roadblocks to harass Black citizens during voter registration drives while he was in office, Thompson recalled to me, he took them to court. Wicker was the only member of the states Republican congressional delegation not to cast votes on Jan. 6 challenging the Father. Famous Kappas He is well-known among his colleagues, but not necessarily a nationally recognized figure. Jeffries was only a college sophomore at Binghamton University when he was elected president of the schools fledgling chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi. Diggs presided as president, while Irvin was assigned as temporary secretary of Alpha Omega. He was a force to be reckoned with, Joseph Cordero, who was two years ahead of Jeffries and a fellow Nupe, recalls of the man who would go on to be the first Black lawmaker to lead either party in Congress. Bennie Thompson had 40 receiving yards over his career. After becoming mayor of Bolton, Thompson helped organize the Mississippi Conference of Black Mayors, which successfully lobbied for federal funds to aid the region. Tougaloo was probably that point in my life that convinced me to stay in Mississippi, to choose public service as a lifelong occupation, and just to try to make, in my own way, a difference in the lives of my state and my community, Thompson said. hide caption. H cuRRenT membeRs H Bennie Thompson 1948 united states representative democrat from mississippi 1993 But telling his story in the Mississippi Delta remains fraught. David Cingranelli, a political science professor who became one of Jeffries favorite teachers, remembers that the future Congressman never hid his opinions, despite being one of the few Black students in his course. Fox ratings plunge for Tucker Carlsons old time slot You can barely make out a "private property" sign posted out front. He is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity (Gamma Rho Tougaloo College) and a lifetime member of the Asbury United Methodist Church in Bolton. This button displays the currently selected search type. His net worth is estimated to be around $1.6 million US dollars. READ MORE: Rep. Bennie Thompson, leading the public Jan. 6 hearings, has long worked to protect democracy. The Founders were God-fearing, and serious minded young men who possessed the imagination, ambition, courage and determination to defy custom in pursuit of a college education and careers. Vigilante lynchings of Blacks were commonplace. Hakeem Jeffries' Fraternity Days Set Stage for His Career | Time The Delta is in the northwest. His father died while Thompson was in high school, and friends stepped up to help raise him, instilling in the young Thompson a strong sense of community and sense of connection to the small hamlet of just a few hundred residents. Thompsons supporters delineate a clear path from Thompsons upbringing, education, and career as a Black man in Mississippi, a state riven by the domestic terrorism of white supremacists in the decades between Reconstruction and the civil rights movement. Committee members including Liz Cheney and Adam Schiff pushed back and said such a decision had not been made yet. Since their inception, each organization has contributed countless hours of community service, donated millions of dollars toward educational scholarships, and have provided leadership to communities around the country. We present them here for purely educational purposes. Instagram/Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, 6 Decades Later, Acquittal Of Emmett Till's Killers Troubles Town, Emmett Till's Cousin On Reopening Of Case: 'An Opportunity For The Truth To Be Told', Fraternity Suspends Students Who Posed In Front Of Emmett Till Memorial With Guns, A Brutal Lynching And A Possible Confession, Decades Later, Mamie Till Mobley Memorial Foundation in Chicago. The Kappa Alpha Psi Legislative Conference, as it was originally named, was established by Congressman John Conyers (Gamma Eta, 1951) in 2002. He practiced law for several years, representing CBS in a suit over Janet Jacksons costume incident during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. Jeffries has since credited his time in the historically Black fraternity as a defining era of his life. The ideals of the church were an important foundation of the Fraternity. Their experiences at Howard gave rise to the chief motivating spirits which sowed of the seed for a fraternity at Indiana University and crystallized the idea of establishing an independent Greek-letter organization. Blacks could go weeks without seeing one another on campus. Henry Tourner Asher, Dr. Marcus Peter Blakemore, Paul Waymond Caine, George Wesley Edmonds, Dr. Being a member of what we call the Divine Nine, that is, the traditional African American sororities and fraternitiescreates a relationship with probably over a million people who have that connection in common, says Georgia Rep. Bishop. Denied an abortion, woman tells senators she nearly died on their watch Congress is a venue in which attention-seekers thrive, instinctively turning to camera lights like plants tilt toward the sun. Jeffries was only a college sophomore at Binghamton University when he was elected president of the schools fledgling chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi. He had joined the fraternity just a year earlier in search of community in his new home, nearly 200 miles and a world away from his Brooklyn upbringing. After Carter died in 1999, the event was renamed in his honor. Who are the Jan. 6 select committee members : NPR Read More: America Loves to Celebrate Firsts Like Hakeem Jeffries. Since the beginning, every endeavor was directed toward establishing the Fraternity upon a strong foundation before embarking on plans of expansion. Nupepedia Wikia is a FANDOM Lifestyle Community. "We came by to see this part of history about Emmett Till," says Alexis Ortiz. hide caption. Bennie Thompson Bolton, Mississippi benniethompson.house.gov Born January 28 Joined October 2009 562 97.2K Followers Replies Media Pinned Tweet Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Spring, 2009. All Rights Reserved. He lives in Sumner, Miss., where the two men who killed Till were tried and acquitted by an all-white jury, only to confess to the killing when they sold their story to Look Magazine months later. Thompson is married to London Johnson of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, and has a daughter, BendaLonne, a granddaughter, Jeanna, and a grandson, Thomas. In a video posted last year to his Kappa Alpha Psi chapters Instagram, Jeffries said he was grateful to Cordero for appointing him president of his pledge classwhich preceded his eventual election to lead the whole chapter. On Monday, a federal judge ruled that Trumps former lawyer must turn over a trove of documents, also concluding in his decision that the former president more likely than not attempted to illegally obstruct the counting of electoral votes. Pi Kappa Phis esoteric values are taught to each member "I think all these folks are stirring crap up," he says. Trumps Missing Phone Records Have a Familiar Stink of Criminality, A Federal Judge Rips Trump for Plotting a Coup, An Intimate Portrait of a Village Torn Apart by Politics, Inside the Battle Between Big Ag and Lab-Grown Meat, Its Bennie Thompsons Moment to Defend Democracy. Rep. Sanford The Kappa step shows soon became a draw for students of color across campus. Bennie Thompson Major cities like Detroit and New York donated firetrucks and garbage trucks. Let us see you in your colorful paraphernalia. Thompson defeated the Republican candidate for the seat in a runoff election, mobilizing the districts Black voters. The number of places where they might assemble was limited. The Bennie Thompson Affair Jeffries grew up in Brooklyn, the son of a social worker and a state substance abuse counselor. united states representative democrat from mississippi 1993 The center is supporting efforts by Thompson and the Till Memorial Commission to have Bryant's Grocery and other sites associated with Till's lynching protected as part of the National Park Service. The primary source of federal aid to K-12 education is the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, particularly its Title I, Part A program of Education for the Disadvantaged. "The issue of race is still the undercurrent about the discussion of Emmett Till," according to Rep. Bennie Thompson, an African American Democrat who has represented the Mississippi Delta region in the U.S. House since 1993. The event also creates opportunities for community leaders in the fraternity to meet with, and hear from current members of the House and Senate, who are also members of the fraternity. Weems says. The duty to lead and the privilege to serve others in order to better the world around you. Other Kappa Alpha Psi alumni include famed NBA center Wilt Chamberlain, civil rights activist and quarterback Colin Kaepernick, lawyer Johnnie Cochran, and New York Times columnist Charles Blow, as well as Mandela Barnes, the former Wisconsin lieutenant governor who nearly flipped a U.S. Senate seat last year. Reddit, in a statement, said it found no evidence of coordinated calls for violence on it platform related to Jan. 6. The city halls are no longer places our black folks fear to come, Thompson told The New York Times in a 1979 article. There was an additional misunderstanding being attributed to the acronym of the Fraternitys Greek letters, KAN. Some confused the abbreviation of the letters to refer to the state of Kansas. Instagram/Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting Politics | Three college students posed in front of the Emmett Till memorial sign in Tallahatchie County, Miss. Commission Chairman Once Openly Sympathized With Secession Two of these men, Elder Watson Diggs and Byron Kenneth Armstrong, had previously attended Howard University and had come into contact with men belonging to the only national Black Greek-Letter Fraternity currently in existence. Congressman Thompson is and has been a consistent supporter of our armed fighting forces and veterans, making sure that these 22.6 million heroes get the services they deserve. By Jeff Welch, Director of Diversity and Inclusion. Its a real joy working with him, said Katko, who is retiring at the end of the year. In fact, all twenty-three counties in the Second District are medically under-served and many citizens are unable to afford health coverage. He makes sure that we have an opportunity to reach consensus, said Representative Zoe Lofgren. A spokeswoman for Representative Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chairman of the panel, didnt respond to a request for comment or confirm the authenticity He clearly understands that when you have domestic terrorism that goes unaccounted for, you can be guaranteed that you will have more acts of domestic terrorism. I believe that the ideal chapter is made up of men. The following is a transcript of an interview with Representative Bennie Thompson that aired Sunday, January 23, 2022, on "Face the Nation." In 2006, he was elected to the New York State Assembly. Thompson was born in Bolton in 1948, the son of a mechanic and a schoolteacher. The name was officially changed to Kappa Alpha Psi on a resolution adopted at the Grand Chapter Meeting in December 1914. In order of their founding, here are some highlights of these nine Black Greek letter organizations. How We Can Learn to Live with COVID-19 After Vaccinations. Sometimes, the greatest gifts arrive in the most innocuous packaging. He is a member of the Democratic Party. A memorial first installed in 2008 to mark the spot where 14-year-old Emmett Till was recovered from the Tallahatchie River in 1955 has been repeatedly vandalized shot through with bullet holes. Some people are possessed with a preternatural sense of purpose, a seriousness that lends them an air of gravitas even at a young age. In tiny Glendora, an old cotton gin has been converted to the Emmett Till Historic Intrepid Center Museum. hide caption. Rep. Bennie Thompson: You know, now, this is somebody who voted against a committee made up of 50 percent appointed by Pelosi and 50 percent appointed by Republican Leader McCarthy. Morse says that for decades, there has been a reluctance to draw attention to the building. He is a longtime member of the Asbury United Methodist Church in Bolton and a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity (Gamma Rho Tougaloo College). Bennie Thompson The committees findings contradict complaints from conservative politicians that social media companies are biased against right-wing users. With assistance from Sarah Frier, Alex Barinka and Emily Birnbaum. His district encompasses This one day event brings together teenage members of the fraternity's Kappa League from various chapters to learn about careers in government, meet current members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and tour the Capitol. Bennie Thompson was born in New Orleans, LA. One of the 5 Objectives of the Fraternity is: To promote the spiritual, social, intellectual and moral welfare of members. Many aspects of the Fraternitys rites are engrained in Christianity ideals and contain excerpts from the Bible. The body of Emmett Louis Till, a 14-year-old Chicago boy who was visiting relatives, was found in the Tallahatchie River near Money, Miss., on Aug. 31, 1955. Pi Kappa Phis esoteric values are taught to each member through our Ritual of Initiation. "And the story never got told from an African American perspective.". Emmett Till's killers J.W. Who are bound together in a common loyalty, Who realize that membership means personal responsibility, Who bring credit to the fraternity by striving to attain, Who safeguard the reputation of their chapter, Who prepare themselves diligently to shoulder their. And he was that kind of guy.. Politics | Membership into these organizations were typically White Only.. He participated in step shows, a Black Greek Life tradition, stomping and clapping in unison with other brothers. Thompson had three children: BendaLonne, Jeanna, and Thomas. The two men attacked the teen after Carolyn Bryant claimed he made an aggressive pass at her. Bennie Thompson was born in a very loving family in Bolton, Mississippi. In what capacity would you like to participate? Leaders of the new Republican majority in the House have vowed to investigate allegations of ideological discrimination, using congressional hearings and, if necessary, subpoenas to probe content moderation decisions. Picking an underclassman like Jeffries to run the chapter fit with the Kappa Alpha Psi mantra of training for leadership, Cordero adds, by letting the youngest brothers in the chapter run the chapter while the older ones can provide mentorship.. "It's something that a lot of people are still living.". He has been married his college sweetheart, London Johnson of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, since 1968. Thompson and wife have a daughter, BendaLonne Thompson. Bennie Thompson and his wife London Johnson have a daughter, BendaLonne; granddaughter, Jeanna; and grandson, Thomas Gordon. Bennie Thompson is the son of Will and Annie Lauris Thompson. Top 10 Most Famous Sororities And Bennie Thompson
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